At 80 packed pages, this is Bill’s biggest, fattest collection of sketches yet! A true labor of love on his part, this entire long-awaited book is devoted to honoring stop motion animation master Willis O’Brien, best known as the man who created and animated the creatures for Bill’s favorite movie: the 1933 King Kong.
The contents include:
79 illustrations, 60 of which have never seen print, including depictions of all fourteen proposed creatures for the Spider Pit sequence and more dinosaurs than you can shake a gnarly club at.
A Willis O’Brien Filmography
Stout’s “The First Wonder of My World” essay
Stout’s essay on the missing “Spider Pit Sequence”
A research Bibliography
This is the first of two volumes. This first volume focuses on O’Brien’s silent shorts (including The Ghost of Slumber Mountain), The Lost World, King Kong, Son of Kong and She.
This book is signed by William Stout and is limited to just 950 numbered copies. Bill’s Ray Harryhausen tribute sold out long ago. Don’t miss out on this latest collection! This book is available on this site for $20 + shipping in the Store‘s William Stout Bazaar section.
Please consider this an order for both volumes.
Bill,
Wow. This is not only as good as on my shelf but I have a friend who “needs” this two so I guess I’ll send him the surprise gift. I’m looking forward to this!
Rick Tucker
Holy Mackerel Mr. Stout!
This looks wonderful. My question is: are there any original pieces available from this colletion? Your cover is fantastic.
Sent you an e-mail about this also a short time back. Maybe it ended up in the spam folder. Check and let me know about this.
Best wishes,
Aaron
Looks great, Bill! I’ll pick it up when I see you at WONDERFEST.
Hi Rick,
Let me know what you think when you get your book!
Hi Aaron,
The new O’Brien pieces (about 60 of them, including the ones I’ve done so far for Volume Two) are all for sale. This last weekend in Louisville at WonderFest I sold two of them already: the cover and the drawing of Kong with Ann Darrow tied to the altar. They went to good homes! Let me know which ones you’re interested in and I’ll send you their prices.
I’ll also have them for sale at the Heroes Convention in Charlotte (coming up in less than two weeks!).
Hi Rick,
Great seeing you and your lovely wife at WonderFest! I wish we had had more time to talk!
Bill,
The Kong book is truly wonderful! Not only have you captured the energy and master moments of the film, but they look so magical in your style. The spider pit section is a great tribute and I’m so glad you thought to make that its own section. I KNOW I saw it on television as a kid, because I specifically asked my dad what those things were ( a combination of small lo-res tv screens and the creatures not conforming to zoo animals).
And nice to see the arsinotherium moment get its due, even though eliminated from the film.
Yes, I wished we had been able to spend some time together, but I also knew that you have been coming there so long you probably have more than your usual number of close friends to spend time with. And it seemed that when I thought I’d stop over and chat, you’d have people at the table, and I wanted to let them have a chance to talk to you. But getting positioned next to Mark Shultz and having some fun conversations was really exciting. I did really enjoy seeing a couple of the originals you had out. Just beautiful. I also was rather amazed at the completely uniform black large areas. Fun to see exquisite linework up close.
And the Fantastic Women is very appropriately labeled. Just amazing.
Next con, we’ll get together. Maybe a Monsterpalooza…
Best Always,
Rick
Bill,
I’ve been a bit busy but the books arrived in great shape at both destinations. I want to apologize about asking you to ship one to a separate address on a single order instead of making two orders of one book. My friend, the Obe enthusiast, was beside himself, he loves it. And I love it! (How could I not?)
Thanks again for being so generous with the postage but especially for yet another gorgeous book. I see another one ready for ordering…..
Best!
Rick